Fuzion Frenzy 2
March 1,2007 - When the first Fuzion Frenzy debuted, it was met with mixed reactions. As a launch title, it wasn’t held to high standards, yet some people seemed to enjoy the crazy minigames it offered. While, Fuzion Frenzy 2 follows relatively close to original, its presentation and overall lack of content make it seem like a very cheap and sub par sequel. The game closely resembles the Mario Party games, and since developer Hudson has made that party-game series one of the highest selling franchises in Nintendo’s history, it really is a shame how mediocre the final product turned out to be.

Fuzion Frenzy 2 takes place in the middle of the universe in which players are competing in an intergalactic competition to win some undeclared magnificent prize. While the premise itself sounds extremely lame, nothing compares to the horrible sounding announcer. To get a picture of how annoying this announcer is, just imagine a game show host trying to do a commercial on vacuum cleaners; someone who is overly-excited over the most boring things. To make matters worse, you will hear his voice over and over again—including his own unique brand of commentary—which uses the same recycled, monotonous catchphrases and sayings.

Players are issued a set of cards with different numbers and symbols on them after the competition begins. Depending on the cards you receive, you can change the outcome of every round by multiplying your score, changing scores with other players, or being able to choose the next minigame. While this seems like an interesting idea, its execution is far from perfect. The computer-controlled characters will always use their multiply cards in the first two rounds (they did this 8 out of 10 times), allowing you to scoop up the benefits if you happen to hold the right card. To make things worse, the cards don’t really affect the gameplay at all. If two multiplier cards are played along with two point deduction cards you would expect the points to be reduced right? Wrong; the game simply cancels out the point reducing cards while the other two players reap the benefits. Winning each minigame is easy to achieve, but getting the points you rightfully deserve is solely based on luck and hope that the computer does not play any card, which will hinder your chances of earning points. Prepare to be constantly frustrated as you can win every game but than watch as the computer uses a super rare card on the last round to edge past you for victory.

You are taken out to a distant planet for battle once all the cards are issued out. While each planet offers a distinct take on what types of minigames you will play there (for example the water planet has water-based games and Earth has ground-based games), all play out exactly the same—minus a few background changes. To make the overall setting sound even cornier, each planet is named after the type of terrain located in the planet. To catch a sampling of the genius writers at work just take a look at the water planet, which is named Moisture, and the technology-enhanced planet that is named Machina. That isn’t creativity, people, it’s just pure laziness.

If you can look past the lame host and intergalactic competition, then Fuzion Frenzy 2 will offer you some form of fun in one way or the other. You’ll only need to remember five or so minigames out of the 40 offered, because all of them are more or less exactly the same. Most of the games require you to either hit someone or something, usually with a hammer or large object of some sort. While Hudson tries to fool players by putting them in robot machines or giant suits, the premise is still the same with players whacking each other in the same old boring fashion. All of the minigames follow this trend, which makes the game feel boring and repetitive after a mere couple of hours. While some games feel fun, there is really nothing in Fuzion Frenzy 2 to hold your attention for longer than five minutes. Plus, since all of the games are alike in some way, you should have no trouble winning the overall competition if you can manage to simply memorize the controls. The computer-controlled characters will never offer up any type of threat as they are some of the dumbest players ever witnessed, usually flinging themselves off ledges or just standing around for easy pickings.

If you happen to have some friends at your house or Xbox Live, then Fuzion Frenzy is somewhat mildly amusing. It is definitely a lot more intense when you have live opponents with an IQ higher than a brick’s, and games usually come down to the wire. Using the cards against friends works a lot better than it does in single player but still offers tons of unfair advantages with players who never win a game ending up winning the competition due to unfair card placements. One redeeming quality of Fuzion Frenzy 2 is that all 1000 gamerpoints are obtainable within five hours. If you are desperate enough to play through this lame and mediocre game for those points, then you might actually enjoy the game a lot more.

Hudson tried to prove that it could make Fuzion Frenzy 2 as popular a series as it did with Mario Party, but ultimately nothing in the game is worth mentioning, or playing for that matter. The games lack creativity, the presentation is terrible, and some of the features never work properly which makes Fuzion Frenzy 2 hardly worth recommending to anyone.

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